Comments on: JAPANESE .COM DOMAINS ARE CHANGING A MARKETING CULTURE

By: admin

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:37:05 +0000

Thank you for your comments. I’m not an expert here, but I really enjoy reading comments regarding this subject from people who have experience in this domain subject. From what I’ve seen in the last year, the Japanese domain “culture” is beginning to change towards Romaji, especially among the younger markets. However, I invite as many comments regarding this movement, and pros and cons on it.

By: Bill F

Bill F — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 12:28:28 +0000

Lemme take a shot on the romaji question.
Fact is very few people in Japan use romaji much at all. Many have trouble even reading it, and there are no agreed upon romaji versions of many words. If Japanese want to add some foreign flavor, they will use katakana 95% of the time to express a foreign word.

One exception I can think of off-hand would be company or business names, which are very often written in romaji.

On the other hand, though, most Japanese use romaji daily when they are entering text on a computer or on their cell phones. That romaji is converted without much effort into Japanese text, but the keyboards themselves are often only romaji.

I don’t know if any of this helps, but one last comment. There are many Japanese who would be unable to spell shirt correctly in romaji, yet the most common Japanese word for shirt is a katakana word that sounds something like “shirts.” In fact, it was just that word that I bought as my first Japanese IDN, seemed hard to resist at the price.

If you ask Japanese about the future of domains, and in particular IDN domains, 99% won’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Of the one percent who do, 90% of them will tell you that domains will never be valuable in Japan. The other 10% is mostly just humoring you.

That said, Japanese are always ready to say what can never work, as it is a mostly pessimistic culture. 99% of Japanese used to say that McDonalds could never work in Japan, because the Japanese eat rice, not cheeseburgers.

More recently they said that American style shopping malls would never work in Japan. They are everywhere now.

I still have people tell me that Japanese would never get tattoos because they are associated with yakuza – despite the very obvious number of tattooed kids everywhere. (Some people would rather believe what they think than what they see.)

So who knows where domains will end up? I decided to buy a few when good deals come up, but it’s still gambling money to me. At the moment, Japanese companies are still too bureaucratic and bogged down to make bold decisions about buying domains. I would be delighted to hear about any Japanese end-users paying a premium, though. As far as I can see, it’s mostly foreign domainers with a few Japanese speculators. Can anyone list any large sales to Japanese end users? Or is that still in the future?

By: Dave Wrixon aka Rubber Duck

Dave Wrixon aka Rubber Duck — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 09:35:12 +0000

Stephen,
Sorry old chap, but if you are going to address this subject, then you should really get hold of somebody who knows their subject. Gary Males here would do, but even better try somebody like Edwin Haward who is also a well known conventional domain players. This subject is big. It is massive opportunity in which even the big boys have totally blown it. Lets’s face it, if SEDO have been struggling for years to get their sales platform compatible. Also, if you really want to cover the angles then you should also look at the Russian, Chinese and Arabic markets at the very least. Ask Berryhill what he knows. I know for a fact that he has knowledge of some very big sales that have not been publicised.

By: Drewbert

Drewbert — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:10:19 +0000

Last time I looked around Tokyo, I didn’t see much Romanji being used anywhere. How many Japanese people use Romanji at all?

XXXXXX Stephen Douglas Responds:

Hi Drewbert,
I can’t answer that, I’m not an expert but I’m sure someone will. On a picky note, you’re mistakenly using the common misspelling of “romaji” by calling it “romanji”. On a quick Google search, your misspelling received about 179k results, and the correct word “romaji” received about 1.6 million results. By my logic it seems like “romaji” has a much-utilized purpose regarding the Japanese language!

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:04:03 +0000

Interesting write up. Interesting timing too, I wrote a more in depth look at Japanese domains over on my blog at IDNdemystified.com a few days ago.

We seem to agree on most things apart from Romaji.. my Japanese native sources have a different perspective. take a look: http://www.idndemystified.com/?p=692

Anyway, good reading thanks.

XXXXXX Stephen Douglas Responds:

Hi Gary,

I didn’t see your recent article but I’ve read your blog before and you and I have talked regarding this. I’ve been working on this article for weeks, and I should have thrown in a reference to your blog, although I didn’t use any information obtained from it. I’m posting your bloglink up here again for my readers… it’s probably one of the most thorough websites regarding Japanese language domains I’ve seen – http://www.idndemystified.com/?p=692

Thanks for writing…